The Principles of Audio Lingual Method

27 Students memorize an opening dialog by using mimicry and applied role-playing. b. Backward Build-up Expansion Drill Teacher breaks a line into several parts; students repeat each part starting at the end of the sentence and expanding backwards through the sentence, adding each part in sequence. c. Repetition Drill Students repeat teachers model as quickly and accurately as possible. d. Chain Drill Students ask and answer each other one-by-one in a circular chain around the classroom. e. Single Slot Substitution Drill Teacher states a line from the dialog, then uses a word or a phrase as a cue that students, when repeating the line, must substitute into the sentence in the correct place. f. Multiple-Slot Substitution Drill Same as the Single Slot drill, except that there are multiple cues to be substituted into the line. g. Transformation Drill Teacher provides a sentence that must be turned into something else, for example a question to be turned into a statement, an active sentence to be turned into a negative statement, etc. h. Question-and-Answer Drill Students should answer or ask questions very quickly. i. Use of Minimal Pairs Using contrastive analysis, teacher selects a pair of words that sound identical except for a single sound that typically poses difficulty for the learners - students are to pronounce and differentiate the two words. j. Complete the Dialog Selected words are erased from a line in the dialog - students must find and insert. k. Grammar Games Various games designed to practice a grammar point in context, using lots of repetition. 39 From the techniques mentioned above, the writer concludes that language acquisition is acquired by habit formation through oral exercises by imitating and repeating. In this approach, the teacher is like a leader, directing and controlling the language behavior of the students. 39 http:www.englishraven.commethod_audioling.html , Retrieved on Sunday, 22 th , June, 2009. 28

5. The Teaching Simple Past Tense through Audio Lingual Method

The Audio Lingual Method is a language-teaching methodology based heavily on behaviorist theories of learning. These theories suggested that much learning is the result of habit formation. 40 Diane Larsen-Freeman illustrate the sequence of the Audio lingual activities is that the teacher is presenting a new dialog, a conversation between two people. The students know they will be expected to eventually memorize the dialog the teacher is introducing. All of the instructions are in English. After she acts out the dialogue, she asks students to listen carefully the conversation. And here is the example of dialogue containing the Simple Past Tense: Sally : Good morning, Bill. Bill : Good morning, Sally. Sally : How are things? Bill : Fine, thanks. How about you? Sally : Fine. By the way, where did you go last week? Bill : I went to Kuta beach. Sally : did you see a tourist? Bill : Yes, I did. I saw many people who enjoy the beautiful of beach. Sally : could you invite me to go there on next holiday? Bill : Sure. Sally : Thank you, Bill. After the teacher act out the dialog, she has the whole class repeat each lines of her dialog after her model. It repeated after several times. When the class came to the line, “I went to the Beach, “they stumble bit in their repetition. Then the teacher uses backward build-up drill expansion drill. The purpose of this drill is to break down the troublesome sentence into smaller parts. 40 Jeremy Harmer, How to Teach …, p. 29-30